


No Wings for You!

by flonnebonne



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Ambiguous Slash, Gen, M/M, everyone has a dead someone, how do airships work anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-16
Updated: 2014-05-16
Packaged: 2018-01-25 00:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1622414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flonnebonne/pseuds/flonnebonne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AKA Edgar and Setzer's Excellent Drunken Adventures in Airship Repair. Apologies for all the fake mechanical whatsit!</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Wings for You!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> _branfordtough's prompt: During the second half of FFVI's storyline, Edgar and Setzer get to know each other better through the inadvisable combination of alcohol consumption and airship maintenance/repair. Whether this ends in awkward, drunken makeouts, a narrowly averted crash, both, or neither is up to you!_
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> Thank you to accidental_zombie for the beta! Any remaining errors are my own.

**No Wings for You!**

**(AKA Edgar and Setzer’s Excellent Drunken Adventures in Airship Repair)**

“Were we in an underground aircraft hangar under an underground tomb,” Edgar asked rhetorically, “and did we board a ship that was sitting there for ten years, in a damp, moldy tomb I remind you, without checking the engine at all, and did we then fly out of that underground hangar under an underground tomb and somehow come up out of the ocean?” 

“Pretty much,” said Sabin, who was shaking saltwater out of his hair like a dog. 

“How did we do that?” 

“Magic?” 

“Right. Everything is magic.” Edgar glanced over at Celes, who was gazing at the sky with her long hair streaming behind her and the faintest beginnings of a smile on her face. Edgar could practically hear an operatic hymn swelling in the background. Was that magic too? Despite his doubts, he couldn’t help but feel hope blooming in his chest. _It helps that she looks really pretty against the sunrise._

As if hearing his thoughts, Celes lifted a hand and pointed at something in the wild purple yonder. 

“A bird!”

Indeed, it was a bird. 

“Setzer, follow it!”  

Indeed, Celes had gone crazy?

“Don’t you think we might have better things to do?” Edgar asked delicately, but Setzer was already yelling back, “Yes sir!” and spinning the wheel to the right and causing the Falcon to--to keep going forward in a line as straight as Edgar’s libido. Setzer frowned and turned the wheel hard all the way left, but that didn’t do anything either, as if Setzer had absolutely no control over this delicate mass of metal and wood and canvas they’d all trusted their lives to, even knowing how the thing had been rotting and rusting for ten years in a damp monster-ridden tomb alongside Setzer’s dead girlfriend who was not only dead but dead by crashing this airship and they were all going to crash and be dead again weren’t they. 

The Falcon was still not turning. _Yes, we are._

“Everything all right over there, captain?” Sabin asked blithely. “We kind of aren’t turning.” 

“What’s going on?” Celes called from the bow. “We’ve lost the bird.” 

Setzer, who was spinning the wheel round and round like a roulette wheel now, like that random death spell a small animal had used on them the other day, grinned and said, “I guess I’ll be seeing Daryl sooner than I thought.”  

“What?” said Celes at the same time that Sabin said, “Huh?”

“Kind of anticlimactic, I know.”  

“We’ll have no anticlimaxes while I’m around!” Edgar heroically stalked over to the helm, wrestling his cape behind him so it’d stop wrapping around his face. Were they speeding up? He lunged forward and gripped Setzer’s shoulder hard. “We need to land so we can look at the engine.” 

“Land? Do you see any land around here?” Setzer gestured grandly at the landscape. They’d left the continent behind long ago, and now they were speeding over open water like Daryl must have done when she flew off into her last sunset…

Best not to think about that. Edgar studied the wheel with his keen engineer’s mind, determined to find an answer. It was a wheel all right. He grasped two of the spokes with his hands and pushed hard to the left, then to the right, then tried jiggling the whole blasted apparatus. It wasn’t working all right. Good thing Edgar was an engineering genius. 

“What about those levers?” he asked Setzer, pointing downward. 

“What about them?” Setzer laughed as his hair whipped around his face. “Isn’t this a lark? The fastest ship in the world can’t turn! She only flies straight and true.”

Oh goddesses, the insanity was spreading. Maybe it infected people with long hair first. 

“Setzer!” Speak of the devil, that was Celes, gamely fighting her way over to them against the howling wind. They _were_ getting faster. “Can’t you do something?” 

“I can make it go faster!” 

“That’s not what I meant.” 

“I know, I know. I was just enjoying my wings!” Another laugh, this one more rueful. “Don’t worry. I can put us down as soon as there’s land. I just can’t turn.” 

As if to prove his point, Setzer’s hand leisurely snaked forward and pulled on a lever, sending the _Falcon_ diving downward with a shriek of rusted metal. Or was that one of his friends shrieking? Certainly it couldn’t be Edgar. “Eeeeee,” went the sound, whatever it was, until finally Setzer pulled out of the dive and sent them in an insanely steep climb instead. 

“Yahoo!” Sabin yelled while also hanging on for dear life. “Setzer, you are completely out of your mind!” 

“I know!” Setzer yelled back as masses of Celes’ long hair blew into his eyes. “Whew! I can’t see!” 

This went on for another two hours. 

* * *

Growing up in the desert, Edgar had never thought he’d come to hate the sight of the purple ocean so much as an adult, but then he’d never thought the ocean would turn purple either.   

“Land!” Celes called out finally, and it was the sweetest word in the world to Edgar’s ears. “A very small piece of land! Can we land on that?” 

Or maybe he’d spoken too soon. 

“Can I park this enormous flying vehicle on a tiny triangle of dirt while we’re zipping along at ten thousand clicks a second? Who do you think you’re talking to?” scoffed Setzer. “Everyone hang on! Literally, please!” 

Scurrying ensued. 

“Should I be worried that this ship has handrails everywhere?” Sabin asked rhetorically as he grabbed on to the nearest handy rail. 

“If _that’s_ what you’re worried about, you don’t have enough imagination,” Edgar told him as he joined his brother at the rail of death. 

“Hey, I’m just glad Kefka hasn’t blasted us with his Light of Judgment yet. It could turn this airship into a shredded chunk of dried meat—” 

“I take back my previous statement.” 

“Wait, isn’t it safer if we go belowdecks?” asked Celes at the very same moment that Setzer let out a whoop and the _Falcon_ began to plunge.  

* * *

Fortunately, Edgar was used to plunging by now. 

It occurred to him that a desert man should never have to get used to horrible vertical flight maneuvers that send a person’s lower body flying willy-nilly through the air as he hangs on for dear life to a fragile wooden handrail with a fragile pair of hands, hoping the whole thing didn’t just rip apart like, like a shredded chunk of dried meat, damn it, but he supposed after two airship crashes it was something he ought to just roll with, right? 

 _No_ , it was still horrible.  

* * *

Setzer released his grip on the wheel and gave a bleary grin. That was kind of _amazing._ Better even than winning at a death roulette spell. Any landing you could walk away from, right? 

 _Shhh shhhh._ Not twenty feet away from the tip of the _Falcon’s_ bow, waves lapped at a sandy grey shore. A good part of the ship’s balloon actually hung over the water. Yeah, any landing you didn’t have to swim away from was a good one in Setzer’s playbook. 

Head spinning gloriously, he stumbled away from the helm and asked, “Everyone alive?” 

“No,” wheezed Edgar, who was still draped over the deck railing like the prima donna he was.  

“We’re fine.” Celes’ voice wobbled a bit, but she was already applying a healing spell to Sabin’s forehead. 

The big guy looked pretty banged up with all that blood running down his face, but he gave Setzer a thumbs-up. “Head wounds don’t bother me anymore,” he explained. “I’ve had so many of them.” 

“That wouldexplain a lot,” Edgar groaned, picking himself up and promptly slumping over. “Is the _Falcon_ all right?” 

“Probably.” Setzer rolled his head from side to side to get out the post-crash kinks, taking a quick look around. No major damage he could see. “I pulled up on the throttle at the last second—you probably felt it as a sudden jerking around the region of your liver—sorry about that. I barely remembered to pull up at all. Good thing I did or we’d probably all be dead.” 

“How comforting,” said Edgar.

“Anyway, that should have lessened the impact and hopefully we aren’t stranded on this tiny island or anything like that.”

“Stranded on this tiny island?” Celes’ voice went up an octave, and Setzer had sudden flashbacks to Maria. “What do you mean, stranded?” 

He raised his eyebrows at her. “I need to check how much damage we sustained. Might take a while to fix. If it’s fixable at all, hm _._ Hopefully we don’t need any special parts.” 

“I did not travel halfway across the world to go through this again.”  

“Again?” 

Celes stood, cutting off her spell abruptly. Sabin gave her a look that said, “Huh? That’s it?” But she was in General mode now, and he quickly shut his mouth. “Let’s take a look at the exterior damage first, and then judge if it’s safe to go belowdecks.”

“Yes’m,” the three grown men chorused.

Setzer sucked in a breath as he followed Celes off the gangplank. Stale, hot wind blasted dust in his face, and he caught glimpses of a landscape even greyer and uglier and more barren than…well, the rest of the world, or what he’d seen of it. A few black-barked, bare-branched trees reached toward the sky, twisted in death-like agony, while above them a single lonely seabird screamed its keening, pain-filled cry of mourning for the world that was, etc.

“It’s so flat,” said Sabin, poetic as always.

“Don’t worry about that right now,” said Celes. 

“As always, our dear Celes dazzles us with her charm,” Edgar said, bowing. 

She gave him a Look, then returned to staring at the seabird as it wheeled across the sky. 

They marched around the _Falcon_ under Celes’ direction, with Setzer and Edgar inspecting the ship while Celes and Sabin kept an eye out for possible dangers on this unknown island. Between a runic knight’s magical senses and a martial artist’s physical senses, Setzer wasn’t worried about being caught unawares by monsters. He kept his attention on his work, on the ship. Daryl’s ship. His ship now.

About halfway around the _Falcon_ , Edgar said, “Seems like the exterior is all right. Cosmetic damage only, so far.” 

Setzer nodded and kneeled down to rub the hull lightly, gently. They’d landed on a soft, sandy patch of ground—Setzer really was a lucky bastard—and the wooden planks had held strong, despite their long, agonizing slide across the earth. 

 _I want the best for my_ Falcon _, you got it? No cutting corners. I catch a whiff of you cheaping out on me and you’ll see what creative things I do with your wood._

She’d been a real bully to the merchants in Jidoor. A real bully to Setzer too. She’d dragged him along to the logging site, made him ride chocobo-back practically all the way to Kohlingen, but he remembered how he caught his breath the first time he caught a glimpse of it, the ship before it was a ship, a stand of white oak fifty strong, felled for her and sheered for her and curved into this shape for her. You couldn’t say no to her. Fastest woman in the world, she caught the stars even. She always got what she wanted. 

“Setzer? You ready to move on?”

He stood. 

Eventually, they finished their inspection, and Setzer assured them that their ship was still ship-shape, at least from the outside. There were some dents in the protruding metal frame that held the hull together—they must have hit a rock or hard patch of ground—but the damage wasn’t critical. Probably. Setzer wouldn’t know for sure until they took off, but kept that bit of information to himself. No need to give the others an apoplexy, as amusing as that would be. 

Setzer glanced sidelong at them, his comrades, his pack of hopeful fools. Daryl wouldn’t have minded them on her ship, he thought. 

“This place is so cool!” Sabin called out. “The ground is all squishy and feels so nice between my toes.” 

Well.

“I wish you wouldn’t take off your shoes when we’re exploring strange new places,” Edgar clucked. “You know that tomb was full of dead things, right? If you turn into a zombie I’m not revivifying you.”

“Ha, you’re so funny, bro.” 

“I’m not kidding.” 

“That’s because you don’t know that spell.” 

“There is no such spell,” Celes informed them. 

Edgar gave a firm nod. “Exactly.”  

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping Setzer?” Celes pointed out. 

“That’s true.” Edgar stepped over to Setzer’s side and said, belatedly, “How is she?” 

“Celes wants to kill you.” 

“I mean the ship.” 

“Everything looks fine so far.” He took a deep breath, sucking in the warm, dusty air. “Let’s go inside and look at the engine.” 

The heart of the _Falcon_ , he hoped, would still fly straight and true. And left and right too. 

* * *

The inside of the _Falcon_ was a mess, Edgar thought. Understandable of course, as Celes said politely when they stepped into the decadent mess of the captain’s workroom, loose paper and intricate mechanical instruments and brightly coloured scarves flung everywhere during their crash— 

“Oh no, this room was always like this, if not to this extent. Daryl wasn’t the most organized, she hated cleaning and she never hired crew the way I did.” Setzer sounded distracted, his voice as far away as—well, an airship taking to the skies, obviously. Edgar wasn’t the poetic sort. 

He watched as Setzer floated forward, hand landing idly on a leather-bound book flung spine-up on the captain’s desk. The hand lifted the book, smoothed the frilled pages shut, then opened the cover. The hand started running over the words inside. 

Sabin scratched the back of his neck. Celes put a palm against her shoulder in an almost military gesture. And Edgar looked elsewhere, deciding the man deserved a moment of privacy. 

There were all sorts of fascinating things in this room he didn’t feel he was allowed to touch. Trashy knick-knacks from all over the world on the bookshelves. Spiny navigational equipment sticking out of drawers. Books with all sorts of exciting names, like _A Treatise on Self-Propelled Flight_ and _The Basics of Motion Forces_ and the one Edgar’s fingers really itched to pick up, a thick tome labelled _Engine Wars: Two Conflicting Theories on Thrust Optimization c. 1250-1300_.

It occurred to him that he and Setzer had a lot of common interests. He and Setzer and Daryl. Edgar was better organized though. His workroom at home didn’t look like this. 

On the florid wallpaper above the desk, he saw, there was a message scrawled in black ink. _Drag is a real drag,_ it said, _and a vector quantity too: Fd=1/2pv2CdA_ . Was that a veiled complaint against the Empire? What a fascinating woman the captain of the _Falcon_ must have been. Such a shame she’d died before he could have asked her to join the Returners... 

Edgar shook his head. He was reading his own past into this room. Sabin was likely doing the same. Celes, he didn’t know, but he could imagine. 

They couldn’t keep wallowing here. As much as Setzer ought to be given time here, they couldn’t give him, or themselves, any more than this. 

_Better to leave the past lying in its grave, my friend. Unless, of course, your friends ask you to dig it back up._

For a moment he felt terrible about what they’d asked of Setzer, but Edgar had shelved his own grief often enough to put his pity, and his empathy away too. 

He glanced at Sabin, who understood (of course he understood, this reclaiming of old loss) and there was no need for words, for all the years the two of them had spent apart. Sabin’s blue eyes were bright with emotion. Poor kid had never been able to hide his feelings. But it was the prince of Figaro who stepped forward and said, lightly, “She was a real piece of work, huh.” 

After a moment, Setzer put down the leather-bound book with a snap. “Yeah. I was hoping to grab the blueprints for the engine in here, but I remembered just now that Daryl never wrote them down.” Setzer laughed strangely. “Too paranoid I’d steal them.”

“Then how did she build this ship?” Celes asked wonderingly.

“She had all the plans in her head.” 

Edgar couldn’t help but be impressed. “She must have had a large head.” 

“Well, she was rather full of herself.” Setzer’s scarred lips twisted into a wistful smile. “Come on. Let’s head to the engine room.” 

* * *

Staring down at the door to the engine room, Setzer braced himself for rust and worst things. 

The engine room had been locked shut, as he’d left it ten years ago, but it wasn’t a perfect seal. You couldn’t have an actual working engine unless there were valves for air to get in and out, and Setzer hadn’t closed those up when he entombed the _Falcon_. Too much trouble for what he’d thought to be a final burial. 

As the hatch swung open with an audible _fsssshhhh_ , he peered into the darkness and imagined what could have gotten down there. Some kind of slime monster living at the core of Daryl’s beloved _Falcon_ , no doubt, green acidic goo oozing all over the metal. Or a ghoul wrapped in chains, rattling with the weight of its sins. Sometimes Setzer wished he had less imagination.  

Looking back at the others he said, as casually as he could, “Be ready for anything.” 

Celes, as if reading Setzer’s mind (which was always possible, with her), already had her sword out. “You should see what happened the last time we stepped into an engine room,” she said.

Sabin cracked his knuckles. “The tentacles?” 

“Don’t talk to me about tentacles,” Edgar shuddered. “I knew we should have checked the engine before takeoff.” 

Setzer decided to ignored the Figaro royal family. “How are you going to get down the ladder while holding your sword?” he asked Celes. 

“I’ll cast Float.” 

“Float, eh? That would have been a handy spell when we crashed. Both times.” 

She gave him a look. “Good point. Remind me the next time.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Okay, enough with the veiled threats or flirting or whatever you two are doing,” Sabin grumbled, pushing Setzer to the side with one beefy nudge. “I’ll go first if you’re a scaredy Cait.”  

“No.” Setzer nudged his way back in front of Prince Beefcakes. “I don’t want you breaking anything.” 

Before anyone else could start complaining, he lowered himself onto the ladder and started climbing down. 

 _This rung_ , his hand remembered as he descended, _and this one_. Always her in front, not him. She didn’t want him breaking anything. 

The dark of the entrance shaft gave way, eventually, to the grey of the engine room, where portholes let in just enough light to avoid death by machinery. Not enough light to _work_ on the machinery, though. He only had a bare impression of the engine hulking above him. But he could close his eyes and picture it exactly. 

He moved over to the wall, as if in a dream, and flicked a switch. Like magic, the electric lamps on the walls flooded the room with a warm yellow light. 

There she was. Daryl’s baby, the heart of the _Falcon_. As if Setzer could ever forget what she looked like.

Footsteps sounded behind him. He’d almost forgotten about the others. 

“No monsters this time,” said Celes, sheathing her sword and cancelling her Float spell. Sabin looked disappointed.  

“Can’t believe the lights still work.” Edgar gave an admiring nod at the fixtures on the wall. “What kind of battery do you use?” 

“Something Daryl and I came up with ourselves. The energy is generated during flight--the wind causes a turbine to spin and that creates the energy,” Setzer explained. “We were flying for a couple hours there, so we have plenty of electricity now. But before that we couldn’t have turned the lights on.” 

“Ah, so that’s why you didn’t want to check the engine when we first boarded.” 

Setzer gave him a sideways grin. “Oh no. We could have used magical light. I just wanted to freak you out.” 

Edgar made a face. 

After that, Setzer got to work. He suspected there was something wrong with the throttle body—they’d sped up to maximum speed and been unable to decelerate for a reason—and that worried him more than the _Falcon’s_ inability to turn, which was probably due to a simple problem with the rudder or tiller. Maybe a broken rope or wheel somewhere, easily fixed. But the engine was another story. 

So he was careful, checking and oiling every component of the enormous, haphazard machine Daryl had built. Gas pipes snaked around gearsturning around shafts swamped in cables. Asymmetry was the order of the day. When it was turned on it was even more bewildering, smoking and steaming and pumping like an animal in heat. It had always gotten him and Daryl in the mood for— 

 _Squirt squirt_ went the oil can. He closed his eyes, staving off a headache. This was the first time he’d done maintenance on the engine of the _Falcon_ by himself. _I’m not letting you work on my baby without me, Gabbiani. You’ll steal my secrets_. And now here he was, going over the engine piece by piece. 

The process was more tedious than he expected. Actually, it was mainly tedious because he had three hanger-ons who were either asking questions about his every move (Edgar), staring at him with eyes that said _hurry up, slacker gambler_ (Celes), or just fidgeting and bouncing around and touching everything he wasn’t supposed to (Sabin). 

“This engine is _insane_. How is this cluttered mess faster than the _Blackjack_?” Edgar said for the hundredth time, like a kid who’d forgotten his manners, or an engineer in someone else’s engine room. Setzer ignored him for the hundredth time. 

“Do you think Terra’s all right?” Sabin was chattering away at Celes while running one finger along a loose bearing. (“Don’t touch that!”) “Do you think she could handle it by herself if Phunbaba came back? Or another of those monsters that Kefka released…like that flying Doomgaze thing I heard about—” 

“I heard it was Deathgaze,” Celes broke in. 

“Really? But I like Doomgaze better.” 

“You can ask him his preferred name if you happen to run into him. 

“Well, we need to get back in the air first!” Sabin guffawed. “Setzer, how we doing?” 

Setzer needed a drink, that’s how he was doing. Or a good screw. Not the mechanical kind. He tightened a screw (the mechanical kind) and imagined it was his friend’s neck. No wonder Edgar had banished his brother from the kingdom. There was no way the guy could sit in a castle all his life. “It could be better.” 

“What can we do to help?” asked Celes, not getting the hint.

Setzer lowered the screwdriver and gave her a pointed look. 

“Ah,” she said. “Sabin, why don’t you go search for water, and perhaps food? Our canteens are pretty much empty, and we’ll be here for a while yet.” 

Sabin startled. “You mean I can get out of this hole?” 

“Don’t call it a hole,” said Setzer. 

But Sabin was already climbing the ladder, practically bounding up the rungs, and a moment later he had disappeared. Well, that was one down.

“Maybe you should go too,” Setzer suggested to the others. “It’s dangerous to go alone.” 

At that, Celes whipped her head around and gave him a hard-eyed stare. “I am going to stay here and make sure you keep working. We are not staying on this island a moment longer than we need to.” 

Setzer turned to Edgar. “Shouldn’t you watch your brother’s back?” 

“Don’t worry, Sabin will be fine.” Edgar flipped a hand flippantly. “I decided to stop worrying about him ever since he fell in a river while blitzing a talking octopus and later came back to us with a samurai and raging beast boy and tales of suplexing a ghost train.” 

Setzer didn’t say anything for a moment. “That must have been a strange time in his life.”

“No, actually.” 

* * *

An hour later, Sabin still wasn’t back. 

By this point, Edgar was getting a _bit_ worried. What if Sabin came back with even more weird people?

However, Setzer had asked Edgar to look at the rudder and tiller (he got testy whenever Edgar hinted that he’d like to work on the engine, but the non-metal stuff was fair game, apparently), so Celes finally agreed to go look for their missing man. 

“Why are all the men in my life so unreliable?” she said as she turned to leave. Edgar raised an eyebrow. “I can see you raising your eyebrow, Figaro.” 

 _How?_ Edgar mouthed at her back. 

“I just can.” 

After Celes’s footsteps above had faded away, Edgar said, almost to himself, “No wonder the Empire kept winning.” But then he noticed what Setzer was doing—Setzer was rummaging around in the tool cabinet, muttering to himself about being thirsty, and lo, a moment later one pale hand emerged from the cabinet clutching a silver flask. 

Edgar was pretty sure that wasn’t water in there. 

“I thought she’d never leave,” said Setzer, and the metal glinted saucily, warm and inviting in the lamplight.  

“Oh no,” Edgar said. “No drink for you, Mr. Recovering Alcoholic.”

But Setzer was already unscrewing the cap. “Do you want to go through detox again?” Edgar warned him. In reply, Setzer raised the flask to his lips. “Think about it.” Setzer tilted his head back. “Are you going to repair this ship drunk?” Setzer’s Adam’s apple bobbed once, twice. From his throat issued a quiet hum of pleasure. Edgar's own throat went dry, and he realized how thirsty he was. Of course alcohol would just make him thirstier, but...it was almost obscene, the way those lips caressed the metal, the way they smiled around the neck of the bottle. And then Setzer's eyes slid to the side, lighting on Edgar with a glint, a challenge, a _dare_ , and that was it, the king would not be mocked any longer. 

He lunged.

Of course Setzer drew his hand back, putting the flask above and behind his head, like he was playing a child’s game of keep-away, so Edgar pushed his body forward, the way Sabin had taught him to fight ( _don’t be afraid of physical contact_ ) shoving up against Setzer so he was in good position to grip and pull on the offending forearm, take the flask away by force. But he felt the tendons beneath the silk shirtsleeve tighten, because Setzer was a strong alcoholic damn it, and also a dirty one who thought nothing of jabbing Edgar in the gut with his free arm, right in the pit of the stomach so Edgar couldn’t help but double over, wheezing so much he couldn’t even tell Setzer what a bastard he was, the bastard. 

Then Setzer proved it by leaning down and waggling the flask in Edgar’s face. “You want some?” A whisky-breathed whisper in Edgar’s ear. “You could have just asked.” 

And then Edgar grabbed the gambler around the knees and _pushed_ , sent them both tumbling to the ground, but Setzer was laughing, giggling almost, then something like a sobbing gasp got mixed in there and Edgar was suddenly reminded that Setzer was grieving, the drinking had always been about grieving, and he stopped where he was, with his body draped over a man who had lost everything once—ten years ago, just like Edgar himself—and the thought sent Edgar into a spiral of remorse, until Setzer said, “I’m kind of horny right now.” 

Edgar didn’t move.  

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s not about you. For the most part.” 

Edgar still didn’t move. He was afraid of what would happen if he moved. 

“Just how old is that whisky?” he asked instead. “That’s kind of disgusting.” 

“Age makes it better,” Setzer said, after a moment. 

“If it’s sealed properly,” Edgar pointed out, “and in the right kind of cask that will impart a nice flavour to the whisky. Not a metallic taste.” 

“No wonder it tasted funny.” 

That didn’t sound good. Hopefully their only ticket off this island hadn’t poisoned himself. Edgar shuffled around a little, trying to get up so he could look Setzer in the eye and give him a stern telling-off, but the gambler chuckled, eyes closed, and said, “That isn’t helping.” 

Edgar stilled, then made up his mind. In one decisive movement he rolled to the side so he lay beside Setzer instead of on top of him. He stared at the wooden slats in the ceiling. What do you say in this kind of situation? “Sorry.” 

Above them, dust motes floated idly. It took a while for Setzer to answer. Their breathing was too loud in the silent engine room. “Nothing to be sorry about. You didn’t spill anything.” 

Edgar turned his head to the side. The flask, still in Setzer’s outstretched hand, was magically upright. Edgar thought about taking it away, but Setzer started pushing himself up on his elbows, taking care not to tip over the flask as he moved. Seeing this, Edgar slowly sat up as well, wincing a little when he tried to use his stomach muscles. He’d almost forgotten about that jab in the gut. He glanced over at the person responsible. He rolled his eyes.  

Setzer was sprawled casually on the floor, upper body propped up on one elbow, torso curved invitingly, with one leg lying stretched in front of him, the other bent provocatively at the knee. And the flask…the damn flask was standing up proudly between Setzer’s legs of course, on the floor right in front of his groin, not at all suggestive or anything, not at all.

“You wanted the whisky, right?” Setzer said, lips lifting at the corners into a languid smile. “Why don’t you take it?” 

Edgar couldn’t help staring for a moment. So this was what women saw when he invited them into his room. No wonder they all ran away. “You really are horny, aren’t you.” 

Setzer shrugged gracefully. “If I’m asking you, I must be.” 

“Thanks.” 

“It’s just when I work on machinery, I start to get…you must know what I’m talking about, right? The way you carry on with your tools.” 

Edgar stared. And stared and stared. “No, I don’t.” 

“Seriously?” Setzer sat up a little straighter, making himself look a lot less slutty. “All the pumping and thrust and drive and heat…goddesses, the propulsion physics alone—”

“Yes, I’ve heard the jokes before,” Edgar cut him off. “It really doesn’t do anything for me. Engineering is completely separate from lovemaking in my mind.” 

“Truly? You’re surprisingly uptight.” 

“Maybe my mind is just more organized than yours.” 

“Or maybe you just haven’t been…exposed to the right material.” Setzer had a sly note in his voice. “You should take a look at that book I was reading up there. Daryl’s footnotes, especially.” 

“You mean you weren’t having an extremely sad moment up there?” Edgar asked, mouth gaping. “You were getting off on…engineering porn, or whatever that stuff is?” 

“I can be sad and horny at the same time,” Setzer defended himself. Then he paused, as if thinking about that statement. He shook his head. “So you really don’t get excited by engines?”

“Not like that.” 

“And here I assumed you’d definitely be up for something after hours down here. Pun intended.” 

“You didn’t even let me work on the engine,” Edgar pointed out, “and it’s not even on, so why would I be?”  

“…Proximity?” 

“You really do think I’m a pervert, don’t you.” 

“It’s not like you don’t encourage it.” 

“True,” Edgar acknowledge. “What I want to know is why you didn’t let me work on the engine? If it was your plan to jump me, I mean. ” 

“None of this was planned.” Setzer thought about his answer for a moment, his face serious, then said, “Daryl wouldn’t have forgiven me if I let King Pervert near her engine.” 

“That sounded so wrong.” 

“That was the point,” said Setzer, finally pushing himself into a full sitting position. He took a sip from the flask before Edgar could stop him. “And here I thought you were the most perverted person here.” 

“Give me that.” Edgar crawled forward and grabbed the flask. Setzer didn’t stop him. “You’re one to call me a pervert.” 

“I’m not the one who hit on a ten year old.” 

“Make one inappropriate remark…” 

“Strago wants to kill you, you know. Not to mention Celes, Locke, occasionally Terra—” 

“Are you going to get back to work or do I have to…” Edgar desperately tried to think of a threat, “…tell Celes you were drinking?” 

Setzer didn’t bat an eye. “She’ll know anyway. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but she has crazy magical powers.” 

“That’s why we should get back to work.” 

“I needed a break,” Setzer said. He got up, casually strolled over to the tool cabinet and took out another bottle of alcohol, a heavy Jidooran red wine that Edgar knew well. “Want some?” 

Edgar tilted his head back and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not going to win, am I?” 

“No. But if you drink, there’ll be less left for me.”  

“How much alcohol is there?” 

The wine bottle was now mysteriously in Edgar’s hand. “There is alcohol hidden all over this ship.” 

“ _What_? You made sure this ship was stocked with drinks before you buried it?”

“That’s how she would have wanted it.” Setzer gave a smile that wasn’t quite a smile, and Edgar was reminded that the drinking really was about grieving. “Come, my friend in engineering. Drink, and maybe I’ll let you help out on the engine.”  

“I thought you said Daryl wouldn’t want you to.” 

“If you’re drunk enough you won’t remember anything anyway.” 

“You trust me not to break anything?” 

“I trust you enough.” Setzer said lightly. “Now stop stalling. Don’t you want a chance to see the most powerful engine in the world up close?” 

Two drunk engineers and one volatile machine? Let it not be said that Edgar Figaro couldn’t be bribed. 

“What the hell,” he said. “You got a cork opener?” 

* * *

Neither of them were lightweights—Setzer was a recovering alcoholic, Edgar was recently the leader of a gang of thieves, and both had spent a lifetime drinking regularly—so between them they had to finish off the whisky and the new bottle of wine before Setzer deemed Edgar impaired enough to help with the engine repairs. They finished off the last of the water from their canteens too, but that was hardly anything. It was all alcohol all the time now, baby.  

“You know,” Edgar mumbled, empty wine bottle in his left hand and rubber belt in his right, “I bet Sabin and Celes are making out right now. That was their plan the whole time. He ‘went missing’ and she had to go out and look for him—pssh. Right. You know they travelled alone together for weeks before they found me? What took them so long? Makeouts, that’s what.” 

“You don’t say,” said Setzer, who was quietly opening another bottle of wine. Edgar seemed to be the wine sort. The whine sort. Whatever. Hee. The drunk idiot probably didn’t notice the new bottle. Setzer was so sneaky. 

“You think you’re being so sneaky, don’t you, don’t you,” Edgar tsked, wagging the belt in Setzer’s face. “Oops.” 

“Ow!” 

“Sorry.” 

“Apology unaccepted.” Setzer wiped grease off his nose. “You ruined my perfect face.” 

“Ha, your face. Where’d you get those scars anyway?” 

“From asking stupid questions.” 

“That’s weird.” Edgar nodded his head several times, eyes drifting shut. “I think I might be a little tipsy.”

“You don’t say. Here’s a new bottle.” 

“Thanks.” Edgar took a deep gulp, broad hand wrapped around the neck of the new wine bottle, and Setzer couldn’t help picturing other things. What a selfish bastard Edgar was. Still decently handsome though. Good thing Setzer was so sloshed at this point he probably couldn’t even get it up anymore. 

“I need to pee,” Edgar gasped. 

Yes, Setzer was definitely not horny anymore. He supposed he should thank Edgar for that. No wonder the guy never got any. 

When Edgar got back, they seriously started to work. Seriously drunkenly. Whoo. 

“Oh. My. Gawdesses.” Edgar gushed. “Those drive shafts must deliver twice the torque of the standard builds. The drag reduction mechanism is to die for!”

“Are you making a really cruel pun?”  

“Huh? No, no! Even I’m not that thoughtless…but really, did you two design these drive shafts yourselves?

“We might’ve.” Setzer’s words were starting to slur, but he thought he was doing better than the drowned king over there. “We were usually drunk, remember.” 

“Hee, drunk humour is funny.” Edgar leaned over the safety railing in a totally unsafe way and ran his hands over a fan belt. “I like belts.” 

“Where did that other belt go?” 

“Who knows?” 

“…Oh well!”  

Setzer shuffled forward (it was always safer to shuffle when drinking) and stood next to Edgar at the railing. “So I think I’ve found the problem,” he said.

“Problem?” 

“Engine go too fast, no turn.” 

“Oh yeah. Why're you talking like Gau?” 

“Because you obviously need smaller words right now.” 

“Oh. Right.” Edgar’s face went contemplative. Maybe a little cross-eyed. “I couldn’t find anything wrong with the rudder or tiller. You think the two problems are related?” 

“Must be. I think the tiller ropes somehow got wrapped around the throttle, and that’s why we were flying at full throttle. The ropes are all under the floorboards, though, so we can’t see them.” 

“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Who designs a ship with tiller ropes that go anywhere near the engine?” 

Setzer frowned. 

“…Oh, sorry. What is wrong with me? I guess I _am_ that thoughtless.” 

“When you’re drunk, anyway.” 

“At other times too,” Edgar conceded, voice going small. “I said something really terrible to Terra once. Or twice. And I kind of helped everyone force her to join the Returners. I’m a terrible person.” 

“Don’t be like that,” said Setzer sharply. He was starting to feel disgustingly sober again. He hated that feeling. “The moment you start getting maudlin is the moment drinking stops being fun. Trust me, I know.” He patted Edgar on the shoulder, a peace offering. “Don’t think too much about anything. That’s my advice.” 

“Thanks, Setzer. You’re an okay guy,” Edgar sniffed. 

“Don’t praise me too much.” 

“You’re right, it’ll go to your head.” 

Apparently Edgar wasn’t capable of hearing sarcasm at this point. “…Anyway, right now we can’t get to the lower parts of the engine, below the floorboards, because I must have misbuilt this part of the ship.” Edgar gave him a look. “What? It was really hard without a plan! I was working from wreckage. All in all I think I did an amazing job.” 

Edgar scratched his head. “So how do we get down there?” 

“We pull up the floorboards, then use Celes’ Float spell.” 

“Celes isn’t here right now.” 

“So we can’t do any work, alas. You know what _that_ means?” 

Slowly, Edgar turned his head to the side. He looked Setzer straight in the eye. “What does it mean?” 

“It means we can make out.” Edgar snorted. “Fine, fine, it means we have an excuse for all our slacking off when she gets back.” Setzer reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small bottle, this one filled with a clear vodka. “So. We should slack some more. Second round?” 

* * *

Round two probably would have killed Edgar via liver failure if he hadn’t figured out, a quarter of the way through the vodka, that Setzer was cheating.

“You’re cheating!” he accused, pointing a finger at Setzer’s face. At the blur where Setzer’s face was supposed to be. “You’re drinking less than me!”

Setzer, for his part, was staring down the neck of an empty wine bottle. The Jidooran red. “It’s so pretty in here.” 

“You’re not listening to me either!” 

Also, it turned out Cure cured more than just wounds. 

“I don’t feel like throwing up anymore,” Setzer beamed, “but I’m still buzzed. That is some good stuff.”

“I love magic now,” Edgar declared feverishly. “No more magic freakouts for me, ever. I should tell Terra the next time I see her. Pass the magicite.”  

Ten minutes later, they began seeing fairies. 

“Too much Cure is bad for you,” Edgar said with sad shake of his head. “We have to stop.” 

“I can quit any time I want!” Setzer shook a fist.

“I’m over here.” 

“I was talking to the fairies.” 

Since Setzer had shown a distinct inability to stop doing anything, Edgar punched him in the head.

“…Thanks, I needed that.” 

“No prob.” 

After Edgar put the magicite safely away, Setzer flopped down on the floor again. “After today, I’m quitting. No more drinking, no fairy magic, no zombie mushrooms either. That stuff is _sick_.” 

“I don’t know what that is so it must be.” Edgar nodded sagely and sat down near his friend. Or he tried to sit. He kept sliding. “Uh. So what do we do until those two get back from their makeout session?”

Setzer’s head rolled to one side. “Well, if _they’re_ making out…” 

“I already told you no is no. You have to respect my wishes.” 

“Yeah, right. That thing.” Setzer’s head rolled back. “Like you’re so respectful of women when you, uh, what’s the word, you know, preposition them.” 

“I am _super_ respectful whenever I use prepositions!” Edgar insisted. “I even try not to end my sentences on prepositions. That’s why I never get any.” 

“So you admit you are lame.” 

“I admit nothing. I am a king. Admitting things is so dangerous when you’re a king.” 

“Tell me about your love life, King Edgar.” Setzer produced the canny lilt of a Vectorian reporter. Not that there were Vectorian anythings anymore. “Admit it. You have none.”

“Like you do.”

“I have my dead girlfriend’s airship.” 

“That’s so _sad_ ,” Edgar told him, eyes watering slightly. “You should talk to Locke, he can totally relate.”  

“Oh yeah. Tell me about…” Setzer’s eyes rolled. “...Locke’s dead girlfriend. That Rachel girl.” 

“How do you know about Rachel?” 

“It’s impossible to get drunk in Kohlingen without hearing about Rachel.” 

“I see your point.” Edgar looked up at the ceiling, mentally asking for divine assistance. Dead girlfriend talk was hard. “Actually, she wasn’t Locke’s girlfriend. She was his fiancée.” 

“Ouch. So you know quite a bit about her?” 

“Not really. Just that Locke took her treasure hunting one day, but then she fell from a rickety bridge while saving him from falling from the rickety bridge, and then she lost her memory and everyone told him to go away, so he went away, but then the Empire attacked Kohlingen and she was tragically killed—see, that’s why I get along with Locke, we both have tragically dead people killed by the Empire in our pasts—where was I? Oh yeah, but right before Rachel died she remembered Locke existed and she said his name, and of course the poor idiot arrives right after that and blames himself, so he asks that weird old man to put her in suspended animation, which he does, or rather did. When did I go into the present tense during my narrative recount?” 

“I have no idea. So that’s why Locke is so messed up.” 

“You’re one to talk.” Edgar felt it rather behooved him to defend a man who wasn’t around to defend himself, even if from the truth. “He wasn’t the only one to put his dead girlfriend in a basement. Agh, there I go being insensitive again. I’ll apologize to Terra later.”

“Actually you should apologize to me.” But Setzer didn’t sound angry. Probably realized what a weird thing it was to put your girlfriend underground with a whole working airship. “So Locke is messed up, and that’s why he gets all the messed-up girls.” 

“You should say that to Celes.” 

“You should say that to Maria.”

“…Huh?” Edgar blinked several times, slowly. “That doesn’t make sense.” 

“I know, I was just continuing the conversation.” 

“Okaaaaay. Um…continuing the conversation…tell me about Maria.” 

“Maria?” Setzer sounded like he was trying to remember who that was. “What about her? Sings real pretty. And she’s blond. I like blondes.” 

Edgar had an awkward epiphany about his hair at that moment. “Sabin is blond too.” 

“But he has a mullet.” 

“…True. Oh, I get everything now. Because you failed to save your blond dead girlfriend all those years ago you now overcompensate by...inviting blondes into your ship, and sending them skeevy letters, and kidnapping them.”

Setzer sighed theatrically, like the opera he’d tried to become a part of. “Kidnap a girl once, hear about it the rest of your life.” 

“Exactly!” Edgar pounced on the admission. “Like with that one joke I made about Relm.” 

“That was _worse._ ” 

Edgar couldn’t argue with that one. “Okay, okay. Let’s change the subject. Tell me about…machines. I like machines.”

“We _know_. I wish you wouldn’t, ugh, stroke your stupid chainsaw all the time. You talk to that thing like you want to marry it.” 

“I do,” Edgar blurted out. When Setzer’s eyes widened, he amended, “A joke, okay? I’m drunk.”  

Setzer settled back down. “What if I told you I might need the chain from your chainsaw to repair the ship?”  

That almost made Edgar fall over. “But this is a _special collapsing portable chainsaw!_ I had to solve a very difficult puzzle to obtain it!” 

“Yeah, Sabin told me you set a clock in Zozo or something.” 

“That’s right. It was a lying clock. Zozo is full of lying.”  

“I need that chainsaw chain. It’s exactly the right kind of chain. Please give me the chain.” 

Edgar recoiled. “Nooooo.” 

“Ha ha, just kidding. Well, probably. Depends what condition the tiller rope is in. I don’t know.” 

“I can’t believe you know so little about this ship but you somehow repaired it well enough to fly.” 

“It was in decent condition when I found it.” Setzer’s eyes got a far-away look in them, and Edgar was reminded uncomfortably that drinking was grieving, and grieving was drinking. Terrible habit. “The hull was made of very strong wood, so it was mostly intact. I replacedthe few broken planks and it could float on water just fine, no leaks. I hired a ship to tow it to the tomb, then I fixed the rest of it down there.” 

“I _guess_ that explains the underwater takeoff,” Edgar commented, intensely curious about how that had actually worked, but Setzer didn’t take the hint. Because he was still… 

“I searched for a long time, you know.” The man’s voice had gone low. “It was a year later when they found her, but I wondered: could she have survived? Could she still be out there, even now? Her memory lost, her face changed, but still her…” 

“You’re going maudlin,” Edgar said, but he said it gently, because he could feel himself going maudlin too. He wished he knew what to say. He wasn’t a poet. Sabin would have known, perhaps, his other half, his better half. Edgar would tell his brother about this later. About how Setzer’s voice changed, went as far away as—a falcon taking to the skies. Or an engine, twisting air into flight. A memory drifting on the highwinds, waiting to be found again. Something like that.

“She’d let me touch her, love her, but not her ship,” Setzer said, almost hoarse now. “Not the heart of it. And now the _Falcon_ is mine, but she’s gone, and I’d give it all back to her if she’d come back and just…work beside me again, for a little bit. We were partners, Edgar. She loved what I loved, spoke the language I spoke. That’s why we were better than other lovers. That’s why she could fly on her own, and me on my own, but we met on our same hill every time.”

And at those words Edgar felt a stab of guilty jealousy, almost painful in its suddenness, because he’d never had anyone like that, and would he ever? Was there in this world a noblewoman, of good standing and good moral character, who loved the things he loved? Was there anyone as free as Daryl, as Setzer, in the closed ranks of the royal families of the world? Someone who would get their hands dirty with grease and burned with steam, who would stand with Edgar and build machines, build nations beside him? No, said his rational mind. _Yes_ , said the drunk in him, _there might be_. 

By that logic… 

“She might still be alive,” Edgar breathed. “It’s an insane hope, but we need any hope we can get.” 

Setzer looked away. “I’m not Locke. I don’t pin everything on a dead girl in the basement.” 

“No. But you keep your mind open. You’re a gambler.” 

For a long time Setzer didn’t say anything, and Edgar wondered if he’d spoken out of turn again. But when Setzer finally opened his mouth, he didn’t sound angry. He said, “Thank you for helping me with the repairs today.” 

“Even if we haven’t actually repaired anything yet,” Edgar replied, careful to keep his voice light. 

“No, I mean…thank you for working beside me. I had hired crew on the _Blackjack_ , but it was always different, better, working with an equal…” 

“I’m a king,” Edgar pointed out. “If anyone’s not equal here it’s you.” 

“That’s true.” Setzer’s grin was rueful, but livelier. “Also, thank you for being blond.”  

“The blond thing again. I think you have a fetish.” 

“It’s quite possible.” 

Edgar, who had practically melted onto the floor by this point, rolled over, held himself above Setzer so he could down at the pointed face, the strange grey hair, the faded scars standing livid against the colourless skin. He still didn’t know where those scars came from. “I’d totally make out with you if I weren’t worried about…liking you too much, Setzer Gabbiani. If I didn’t care at all, it wouldn’t be an issue.” 

“That’s weird and wrong,” Setzer said politely. “Even if you’re a king, you need to live a little.” 

“That’s what I have Sabin for.” 

“See, this is why you never get any. You mentioned your mullet-haired brother when you’re in a position to kiss me.” 

“That’s not going to happen,” Edgar said wistfully. 

Setzer reached up and ran a hand through Edgar’s hair. His blond hair. “Like you said, there’s always hope.”

“An _insane_ hope.” 

“For makeouts, it’s worth waiting.” 

His hand was still in Edgar’s hair. 

And Edgar wasn’t moving. Maybe, he thought feverishly, long hair _did_ lead to insanity. Certainly alcohol did. And fairy magic. Yes, it was all the fault of the alcohol and fairy magic that Edgar’s head was moving slowly downward…

_Thud._

“This explains _everything_ ,” said Sabin.

“Indeed,” said Celes.

“Er,” said Edgar.  

“Heh,” said Setzer. 

“It’s all right,” said Celes with a sort of grand munificence. “I completely understand. I was in the military you know.” 

* * *

“I told you to wear shoes,” Edgar muttered. 

Both Celes and Sabin looked like they’d been completely covered in slime and then coated in a thick layer of dust, as if they’d met a chef with something very, very wrong with his frying technique. 

“We got hoovered up by this Hoover-like monster,” Sabin explained. “And ended up in its stomach, maybe? Remember that giant worm monster we fought once near Maranda, before the world blew up? The thing that liked to sneeze at us? This was like that, in reverse. It sucked instead of blew. That sounded dirty.”

“Maybe I should make a machine like that,” Edgar said thoughtfully. “To suck up dirt,” he added, when everyone started staring at him. “You two certainly need it.” 

“Thanks, bro,” Sabin shot back. “So somehow, inside of this new-fashioned, non-sexual, sucking Hoover, there was this huge underground labyrinth with, er, lots of moving rocks and ceiling deathtraps and monsters and _people_ , you wouldn’t believe how many of them, I guess that’s where all the Vector greenshirts went, and they were so _mean_ , they kept pushing us off ledges and stuff. Man, I don’t even know what was going on down there. You guys should’ve been there. It was great.” 

Setzer turned to Celes. “Did you use too many Cure spells on him?” 

“No.” She sniffed, then sneezed. Maybe Edgar _should_ invent a Hoover-like machine to suck up dirt. “Have you been drinking?” 

“It’s quite possible.” 

“Anyway,” Sabin said hastily as Celes’ eyes narrowed, “we found water and filled our canteens. Tastes all right if you don’t mind a little stomach acid flavour. I guess we should have brought your canteens too… Aaaaanyway, we also met a friend in the Hoover’s stomach. He…she…it…uh, Gogo totally saved us.” 

“Yes, Gogo’s quite an able fighter,” Celes added, “though with an…unconventional style. Very good at following orders. Sort of. That’s why we jumped down the ladder like that. We were trying to get her…him…Gogo to follow us. Climbing ladders can be confusing for…Gogo.” Celes looked up the ladder shaft and called out, “Gogo? Where are you?” 

Above the ladder, a bright, multi-coloured feather plume appeared. 

“That better not be Kefka,” said Edgar. 

Gogo’s head appeared next. It was a head swaddled in yellow and red cloths, decorated with random bits of jewelry and monster horns and other things, and only the bare hint of a face.  

“There you are,” Celes cooed. Which was kind of freaky, Setzer thought, but wisely said nothing. “Gogo, copy me, please.” 

Celes held her hands out and cast Float on herself. So did Gogo. Then Celes stepped forward. Gogo stepped forward too. But where Celes had flat floorboards in front of her, Gogo only had the empty space of the ladder shaft, and soon enough Gogo was floating down safely to them. When Celes put her arms down, so did Gogo. When Celes breathed, so did Gogo. 

Setzer was rather impressed by the weirdness. 

“Gogo is a mimic,” Celes said calmly. 

Sabin frowned. “I thought Gogo was a mime.” 

“That too.” 

“I have an idea,” said Edgar. 

A few minutes later, Setzer found himself standing in front of a hole in the floorboards that Sabin and Edgar had opened up. Setzer hated to see them ripping up the planks like that, but there was no other way to reach the lower part of the engine. He would build a proper staircase down there later, he decided. 

“Celes and Gogo, cast Float on us,” Edgar said, coming to stand beside Setzer. “We’ll float down there and fix the engine. You two…three can stay up here and pass us tools as we need them.” 

“Why don’t I just cast Float twice?” Celes asked. 

“It’s more dramatic this way.” 

Celes crossed her arms, but called Gogo over too, and together they cried out “Float!” in exactly the same voice. 

Side by side, lighter than air, Setzer and Edgar stepped into the darkness. 

“This would be kind of romantic,” Setzer said as the top of their heads passed below the floorboards, “if you were prettier.” 

“I’m not that drunk anymore,” said Edgar. 

“No making out until your work is done!” Celes shouted at them from above. 

“Yessir,” they both called back. 

A moment later, they finished their descent. Edgar took out his flash tool (“don’t make fun of it”), turned on the continuous light feature, hung it around his neck, and turned toward the engine. He whistled. “A good chunk of it is only accessible from under the surface. Like an iceberg.” 

“Like a person,” Setzer said thoughtfully.

“Sorry, what was that?”  

“Nothing important.” 

Then they found the tiller rope, the very complicated tiller rope, and it wasn’t exactly wrapped around the throttle, but it _was_ wrapped around a terrifying slime-snake monster that was using the throttle valve as a hat, and upon making this discovery Edgar and Setzer found themselves quite busy for the next few minutes, with screaming. Also with killing their discovery using only a camera, a whisky flask, a rubber belt, and the aforementioned screaming, which they had plenty of. 

Above, Celes scowled. “I told them, no making out!”  

* * *

Edgar and Setzer emerged from the hole as slime-covered as Celes and Sabin. 

“What is it with us going underground to slimy places lately?” grumbled Sabin. “Maybe I _will_ start wearing shoes.” 

Edgar put a slimy arm around his brother’s shoulder. “You’d better.” 

Gogo put a slimy, dusty arm around Sabin’s other shoulder. “You’d better.” 

“Okay, okay, I get the point.” 

Setzer was peering at Gogo’s face. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to be an airship captain under all the cloth and feathers, would you?” 

“Say, you wouldn’t happen to be an airship captain under all the cloth and feathers, would you?” 

“Never mind.” 

“You know, Setzer,” Edgar said, “when I told you to keep your hopes up…” 

Setzer tossed his hair. “I think it’s time we get off this island, hm? Let’s head to the helm.” 

Abovedeck, they watched with even more anxiety than last time as Setzer started the engine. They felt the rumble of the motors, heard the whir of the propellors, felt the first stirrings of hope reborn. In a cloud of grey dust the _Falcon_ rose again, slowly at first, then faster and faster as Setzer opened the (now monster-free) throttle and spun the wheel left and right, gently at first then more abruptly, sending Edgar’s stomach into uncomfortable parts of his torso, like his kidneys. But it was a wonderful feeling, he thought, to look down and see that damn triangle-shaped hellhole of an island getting smaller and smaller as they sped through the air. 

“This time,” Edgar said firmly, “we are going to head straight to a major continent. And no bird-chasing!” He glanced at Celes, who was again gazing at the sky with her long hair streaming behind her in the wind. 

“Is that a bird?” she shouted, pointing. 

“Is that a bird?” Gogo shouted, pointing. 

Oh no. 

“Oh, what the hell,” Edgar grumbled. “I suppose we’ll be chasing it no matter what I say.” 

“Yeah,” said Setzer, a strange note in his voice, a melancholy tilt to the _Falcon’s_ wheel. Edgar turned to him, wondering what to say, but it turned out there was no time for wondering, because Celes was saying, “No, that’s not a bird. It looks like a giant bat. And it’s coming straight for us.” 

Sabin peered at the distant black shape. “Is it just me, or is it gearing up for a death roulette spell?” 

“Argh,” said Edgar. 

“Argh,” said Gogo. 

“Good thing we just repaired this thing,” said Setzer. For a moment, his eyes closed, but perhaps Edgar only imagined it—those eyes were open now, wide open. “While the rest of you fight, I’ll steer, keep the _Falcon_ safe. Don’t worry—I’m only a little drunk now.” 

Edgar groaned (he was drunk too) as Celes and Sabin moved forward to stand beside him, Gogo trailing behind.  

Turning to the monster, Edgar took out his portable collapsing chainsaw and uncollapsed it. Beside him, Celes readied her sword and Sabin his fists. Gogo was doing…something. Setzer’s hands were steady on the wheel. 

They had their wings again. With wings, Edgar thought, they could fly anywhere, find their friends, beat up _anything_. It was Daryl’s gift to them, this falcon taking to the skies, this engine twisting air into flight, this memory drifting on the highwinds, waiting to be found again. _Thank you, Daryl_ , he thought, glancing back at Setzer. _Thank you for the hope._

Setzer let out a whoop and laughed maniacally.

_And all the alcohol too._

-The End-

**Author's Note:**

> Prince Beefcakes belongs to comic artist Kate Beaton and will never be mine, alas. 
> 
> "It's dangerous to go alone" is a line from the original Zelda game on Nintendo.
> 
> All my fics can be found at [my dreamwidth account](http://flonnebonne.dreamwidth.org/tag/) and [my fanfiction.net](http://www.fanfiction.net/u/147987/Laziness_Incarnate) account. I only use this A03 account to participate in challenges!


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